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And because she seemed frozen there, staring at him with her eyes wide and horrified, he moved toward her and tossed the small package he’d brought with him onto an accent table beside her.
She cleared her throat. “Why do I doubt you brought me gifts?”
Balthazar didn’t trust himself to speak. But he must have communicated himself all the same, because Kendra moved to the table and picked up the small carrier bag, then blew out a loud breath when she looked inside.
“Wow.” She laughed, though he could see from the color on her face and the sudden sheen in her eyes that she didn’t find any of this particularly amusing.Good,he thought.
“Pregnancy tests. You thought I needed pregnancy tests. Five of them, no less.”
“It will do for a start.”
She raised her gaze to his and actually had the gall to look shocked. “You can’t possibly imagine that I’m going to...”
“Now, please.”
His voice was soft, but a command. He saw it move in her, a kind of jolt.
“No.” She dropped the carrier bag on the table as if it had fangs. “I will not—”
“Allow me to explain to you what is going to happen, Kendra.” Balthazar didn’t move closer to her. He didn’t trust himself. Nor did he raise his voice. Even so, she jolted again, harder this time. Her eyes snapped to his and he approved. Maybe now she would take this—him—seriously. “I do not know how you intended to play this game. But you chose the wrong man to play it with. I do not believe the innocent act because, lest we forget, I know the truth about you. And even if I did not, I know exactly what your family is capable of.”
“I’m not acting. I’m not an actor, and even if I was, I certainly wouldn’t bother to put on a performance for a man I never planned to lay eyes on again.”
“Silence.”
That command sliced straight across the room, and if he wasn’t mistaken, straight through her.
Kendra’s breathing sounded a little heavy, almost as if she was having an emotional response...
Or, the appropriately cynical part of him chimed in,she knows she’s caught.
“Your intentions do not matter to me,” he told her, harsh and precise so there could be no mistake. “I would prefer to determine, here and now, if you are pregnant. If this nightmare is truly happening.”
“I vote no, it’s not.” She jerked her head toward the door. “Feel free to leave. Now.”
“But of course, I do not trust you, Kendra.” Balthazar wanted to reach for her and lectured himself, sternly, to keep his hands to himself. This situation could hardly be improved by repeating the same mistake. And besides, he needed to interrogate himself as to why and how he could possibly want this woman the way he did, when he knew what she was. When he knew exactly what she’d done. “Therefore, tomorrow—regardless of what we discovered tonight—we will fly to Athens for an appointment with my personal physician.”
He stood there, feeling like an avenging angel, as she gaped at him.
The way an innocent he was railroading might—
But Balthazar dismissed that.
“There is not one part of what you said that’s going to happen.” Kendra crossed her arms and held herself stiffly. “Not one single part.”
“This is nonnegotiable.”
“Are you under the impression that I...work for you?” This time, her laugh bordered on the hysterical, and he had to fight—again—the urge to put his hands on her. “The only interest I ever had in you was as an emissary from my family on behalf of my brother. Who, I can’t help but notice, you have yet to report to the authorities.”
“Was this not the entire point of your little gambit?”
Against his will, against his own orders, he found himself moving closer to her. When he noticed that he’d placed himself within arm’s reach, he stopped, but it didn’t help.
Nothing helped. This woman was the only addiction Balthazar had ever had, and he would not succumb to it. To her.
He refused.
“There is no gambit,” she was saying, her voice hot and her eyes dark. “This is my life. A life I put together to suitme,not anyone else. I don’t care what you think of it and I certainly don’t appreciate you storming in here like you have some claim—”
